Frequently Asked Questions

Geoforage.io is a flexible data collection tool and is built for fast seamless responses and interactions. It is designed to be fast, simple and seamless. It is generally used in the following ways:

To identify and map existing sites and buildings in an area

To query individual preferences, opinions and sentiments around a space

To generate a list of things that are not working well or could be improved

Build notes on or during a field trip

As a management aid to see planned activities on a site over a period of time

Asking colleagues in different departments about specific questions about works ongoing at a place

How did this tool come about?

This tool was built because we routinely used to survey people about what they were doing in a place as a part of our work. e.g. We used to ask the transport department: "Tell us all the ongoing road projects". They would open a map and identify them on it and we used to digitize them.

Conceptually, there are three types of surveys you can undertake: "regular" and "temporal" or an "asset" survey. A regular survey can be used to undertake data collection for questions like: What is your favorite spot in the park? A temporal survey has a additional time dimension. You can see a schedule of bookings and activities at different locations across your site. An Asset survey is where you specify pre-defined assets or landmarks and then create a survey around that for e.g. in the context of fire hydrant inspections.

Are there sample surveys that I can look at?

Yes. You can take a look at examples below, all for the same location: Hyde Park in London.

You can create a standard survey using the create survey link on the homepage, it offers a great way to get started. If you have interest in customizing the survey or setting up Temporal or Asset Surveys, please go to Geodesignhub Office hours setup a meeting to discuss more.

What are Plus Codes, how is Geoforage compatible with it?

Plus Codes provide a way to digitally address and locate any position on Earth. It is open source and we integrate that technology in the platform so that you can query any location and if survey data exists for that location, we will show it.

How much does this service cost?

Plan

Price

Features

Free

Free

14-day limit

Data must be be licensed as open data

Unlimited responses

Standard surveys only

Plus

100 EUR / survey / month

Email support

Standard, Temporal and Asset surveys

API Access

Your preferred data license

Pro

Contact us

Logo customization

A/B testing

Priority support

Aggregate multiple surveys

What can I do with this data?

Once you have this data there are a number of things you can do with it. Some examples:

Use it in Geodesignhub to negotiate and make decisions and conduct negotations over it

Upload it to your data portal

Engage with us or others to do further spatial analysis, find patterns and derive insights from it

When you upload data to Geoforage.io, you remain the copyright holder of your data, but you grant certain rights to Geoforage.io and Geodesignhub. Some contributors additionally release their contributions to the public domain. We enable anonymous submissions and do no profiling or user tracking so it is not possible to link a submission with a individual.

Is there a way to download the data?

Whether the data is downloadable and how and under what licences and permitted use is decided by you. Data is provided via our API but you will need basic programming skills to access it. For downloads in other common formats e.g. Geopackage, GeoJSON, CSV, Excel etc. you must contact your survey administrator to get a copy. This is something that will be developed in the future.

Why is it called Geoforage?

The inspiration comes from the Orangutan who forages for food in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra. Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates and are known to use a vareity of sophisticated tools. They are also critically endangered, consider supporting a cause that helps them.